


select the prince from a row of identical masks

by coricomile



Category: Bandom, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>14. Gerard/Lindsey -- abandoned libraries and old fairytales</p>
            </blockquote>





	select the prince from a row of identical masks

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is so late! I had SO MANY Ao3 posting problems.

Chubby baby hands reached up, fingers closing and opening. Lindsey kissed each tiny palm, leaving traces of lipgloss behind. In their matching dark hair, each of them wore a crown of dandelions. Something warm crawled up into Gerard’s chest and stayed there. His girls. His beautiful, magical girls that meant nothing more than the entire world to him.

“Once upon a time,” Lindsey said softly, her lips pressed to Bandit’s chubby, ruddy cheek. She looked up at Gerard from her spot on the floor, eyes bright and shining. She was so, so gorgeous. “There was a beautiful princess who lived in a cabin with two terrible frogs and a magical cat.”

Gerard snorted. He laid on his stomach and rested his head on Lindsey’s thigh. He smoothed his fingers over the soft, sweet skin of Bandit’s knee. She giggled and kicked at his chin. The carpet smelled like dust, but the baby powder smell of Bandit’s skin was almost enough to cover it. 

“And the princess loved her ugly frogs and her magic cat, but there was something missing.” Lindsey rested her cheek over Bandit’s head, crushing the dandelions. The sweet smell of them floated down over him. If Gerard closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was in the woods, far away from LA. "So the princess found a magic carriage and loaded up her frogs and cat and went on an adventure."

Bandit giggled, high and sweet. She was such a smart baby, but even Gerard knew that there was no way she could understand what her mother was saying. This was a story for him, for them, as much as it was for her. 

"And it was a great adventure full of dragons and fire breathers and countryside as far as the eye could see." Lindsey handed her crown over and Bandit stuffed a stem into her mouth. Yellow smeared across her round cheeks, staining her skin. "But the princess was still sad."

"She was probably sad because of the frogs' smelly feet," Gerard said. Lindsey flicked his ear. Bandit giggled cheerfully. His chest ached. For the rest of his life, that was the only sound he wanted to hear. His wife's voice and his daughter's bright, wonderful laugh.

"And then, one day, the frogs and the cat and the princesses found themselves in the magical land of New New Jersey, where everyone was angry all the time." Lindsey ignored Gerard's affronted huff. "But there was a lovely prince there, and his even lovelier manservant, who was his kin and caretaker." Gerard wrinkled his nose and opened one eye. Lindsey grinned down at him. 

"Why do I have to be the manservant?" He asked, just shy of petulant. 

"Because you'd be awful at running a country," Lindsey said, her eyes bright. "You can't decide what to eat for breakfast, let alone trying to decide what country to ally with."

“Yeah, because Mikey would be so much better,” Gerard said, even as he sank back down. Mikey would be an awesome king, and Gerard would probably be the best treated manservant on the planet. 

"Shush." Lindsey bopped his nose with one of Bandit's loose fists, tutting at him. "The prince and his manservant were also looking for an adventure. They were tired of life in the castle in New New Jersey. Something was put there for them, but they didn't know what. One of the terrible frogs told them, 'Come, join our caravan and we can look together. For what is an adventure if you have it by yourself?"

"Actually, I think Jimmy said, 'we've got a shit ton of pot and beer, and our bus stinks less than yours.' I mean, it did." Gerard could still almost see them, sweaty and dark and loud when he and Mikey had needed that more than anything. 

"And the prince and his loudmouth manservant joined their adventures," Lindsey continued over him. "Together, they spread the word of peace and fun and happiness, even if the princess did not know them personally."

Gerard rubbed his cheek against Lindsey's jeans, feeling for a moment like an oversized cat. They'd talked before they were even together about the dark places in their heads. He'd been sober for a while, but the pull of addiction was something that never went away, and she knew that and understood in a way no one else had before. Not Frank or Ray or Mikey. Not himself. They'd come together broken, and he hoped, still that the sum of their parts made them better. 

"One day, while the princess and the manservant were foraging for food, they stumbled upon a unicorn," Lindsey said, tickling Bandit's stomach. "And the unicorn told them they tried too hard to find happiness. That, if they would only open their eyes and stop fumbling for it, they would see it was already there."

"And then the princess slapped the unicorn and told it to mind it's own business," Gerard said, thinking of Pete's split lip and grinning. He'd been so fucked up, Patrick hovering nervously above him, trying to figure out what he was on. It had been bad times for all of them. 

“Who’s telling the story here?” Lindsey wrinkled her nose at him and Gerard sighed. “But the unicorn was right, for the first time in its sad little life. The princess and the manservant spent days trying to figure out what it meant, but it wasn’t until the prince and the frogs locked them together away in the carriage that they knew. All along, they were standing right there. Bent but not broken.”

Bandit patted Gerard’s head, her fingers sticking in his hair. She tugged, and Gerard went where she led him. He blew a raspberry against her stomach, through the thin cotton of her onesie. She laughed and clapped, yanking at his hair. Gerard let her.

“And they lived happily ever after,” Lindsey said. Gerard curled his hand around hers, clicking their wedding bands together. 

Forever and ever. The end.


End file.
